of course, there's a waiting game going on at the white house. all of the action right now is happening between leaders reid and mcconnell. t.j.? >> kristin, we will check if with you again. thank you so much. >> seven minutes past the hour. let me bring in economics correspondent nancy cook and reuters political reporter. thank you both for being here. we talk about what's going to get done, what we hope is going to get done. several things are not going to get done. tackle the debt ceiling, the sequester, payroll tax holiday and tax breaks for businesses. where does this leave us if they are not being discussed at this point? >> at this point, the best thing we could hope for is a small, bare bones deal that extends the middle class tax cuts, patches the amt. there are a bunch of things congress and the white house will have to deal with in the new year like the sequester. they are things that will get wrapped up in the other budget that we have coming up, particularly around raising the debt ceiling. >> we haven't talked about this enough. you